


Small Comforts

by orphan_account



Category: The Hanging Tree (1959)
Genre: Feelings, Holding Hands, Kissing, Multi, Period Typical Attitudes, Polyamory, Sharing a Bed, Tenderness, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 21:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14923565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Rune finds love and support in a place he'd never have expected it.





	Small Comforts

**Author's Note:**

> I'm certain no one will read this, but if you do, I will love you forever.

“So we’re both free now. Me and Elizabeth,” Rune says softly.

Doc nods, kicks his foot in the dirt.

“I reckon so.”

“I can’t figure it out. Do you want us to go, or do you want us to stay?”

“I want you to do what makes you happy. I think she’ll make you happy.”

Rune fights the urge to wrap his arms around the man, show him he was loved. That he didn’t have to put up a fight anymore.

“I think she’d make you happy too,” Rune says.

He can’t expect the Doc to share his feelings, but Elizabeth loved him, and their love was sure to be embraced more fully.

Doc looks up, mulls over a thought. He must decide against sharing it because instead he says:

“It’s getting late, Rune. Go on and get some sleep.”

* * *

Rune wonders where Doc sleeps. Sometimes, Rune thinks he doesn’t sleep at all. Hell, what bed frame would properly fit him?

Rune wonders if Elizabeth sleeps at his side. Or maybe he sleeps in a chair at the foot of her bed, holding a shotgun over his knees, ready to blast the head off anyone who tried to lay a hand on his girl.

Rune is woken from his own slumber by a sharp, sudden knock at his door. Rune would know that knock anywhere. He doesn’t bother getting all-the-way dressed to answer the door, and anyway, it’s too hot to wear a shirt if he doesn’t have to.

“Mornin’, Doc,” Rune says, opening the door.

Doc looks over him once, hands him a few coins.

“Run to the store, will ya?” he says. “Gotta make us some breakfast.”

He looks over Doc’s shoulder and sees Elizabeth standing on the porch in her shimmy. She’s watching him watch her. His eyes dart back to Doc’s.

“Sure thing,” Rune says.

Doc nods and walks on back towards Elizabeth.

Boy, it was little wonder there were rumors about them spreading all over town.

* * *

Rune doesn’t think Doc and Elizabeth have done anything immoral. At least, nothing he’d personally qualify as such.

He didn’t think holding hands or looking at each other with loving glances was immoral.

It takes him by surprise, though, when he catches them kissing. He’d gone to chop some wood for the pile and needed to find the wedge. When he walked into Doc’s house to retrieve it, he found something else.

She was sitting curled in his lap like a cat, and his big hands were cupping her face. It was probably the gentlest kiss Rune had ever seen. It confused him how Doc could kill a man so brutally and kiss a woman so softly.

Doc pulls away, but Elizabeth moves forward, lips seeking his out. Doc gives a soft laugh.

“Hold on, now. We’ve got some company.”

Elizabeth looks up and startles.

“Oh!”

Rune’s cheeks flame.

“Don’t mind me none. I was just lookin’ for the wedge for choppin’ wood. Sorry for interuptin’.”

She smiles at him with the same dreamy look that she gives Doc all the time.

He makes quick work of getting the wedge from Doc’s toolbox and heading out, trying not to look. Trying not to notice that they were looking at him back.

* * *

To say that when Elizabeth kissed him on the mouth, he was taken by surprise would be an understatement. His eyes widen, and he gently, but firmly, pushes her away.

“Rune, what is the matter?”

“This ain’t right. You can’t just go kissing people when you’re sparking with someone else.”

Elizabeth smiles. She shakes her head as though in disbelief, and then she laughs.

“Well, I glad you think this is funny,” he adds.

“Rune, don’t you see?” She steps towards him, tucks a lock of his hair back into place. She cups his cheek in her hand, mirroring the way Doc was always touching her. “Don’t you see that I like you too?”

“I see it alright. Don’t make it right though. I won’t betray Doc. Not after all he’s done for the both of us.”

Elizabeth sighs and drops her hand.

“Joseph likes us both, Rune.”

She says it in a pointed way that makes him stand up a little straighter as surprise once again takes hold of him.

“But I ain’t—”

Elizabeth puts two fingers to his lips, and he stills.

“You don’t have to make any decision right now. I just thought you should know.” She leans in to kiss him on the cheek. “Just think on it.”

* * *

Rune thinks on it.

He thinks on it a lot.

In fact, he thinks on it so much that even Doc notices and speaks up about it. Doc rarely spoke up about anything unless he cared about something a great deal.

“You’ve got to keep grinding those herbs, Rune. Folks need medicine, and I need extra on-hand, you know.”

Rune looks down. He was holding the mortar in one hand and the pestle in the other. He hadn’t even realized he’d stopped working. He resumes with extra vigor to make up for lost time.

“Sorry, Doc.”

Doc continues mixing ingredients for some burn balm while he talks.

“You seem distracted lately. That’s not like you. Somethin’ on your mind?”

Rune shakes his head.

“No, sir.”

Doc sighs and puts the balm down.

“Elizabeth talked to you, didn’t she.”

Rune shrugs.

“Maybe.”

Doc nods.

“Now I’m no good at this sort of thing. I don’t much like sharing my personal feelings on matters. But—” Doc stops himself. “Well. I’d understand if there wasn’t a shared interest.”

Rune feels his heart pick up speed.

“They’d run us out of town, Doc.”

Doc laughs in that sad way of his that makes Rune’s chest hurt.

“I think they’ve already made that perfectly clear. We might as well give them a legitimate reason, don’t you think?”

* * *

It takes the three of them a while to figure out what worked for all of them. All of them are so stubborn in their own ways, after all.

Elizabeth does like it when the two men eat all the bacon.

Doc doesn’t like it when the washing piles up.

Rune doesn’t like it when Doc tracks dirt into the house.

But they manage, and soon thrive, where it counts the most. They’re comfortable together, is the thing. Doc makes that quite clear one day at supper.

“I’ve got an idea,” he says before taking a drink.

Elizabeth puts down her knife and fork. Rune cocks his head to the side. He was never sure what Doc would propose they do next.

“I’m tired of having two beds in this house. Someone is always left out. Thinkin’ I might just rectify that.”

Elizabeth’s face breaks into one of her usual dreamy smiles. The one she wears when Doc does something romantic and warm. She reaches out for his hand, which he takes. His hand is so big that hers disappears inside of it.

“I think that is a beautiful idea. Don’t you, Rune?”

They stop looking at each other long enough to look at him, and suddenly he is faced with two faces looking at him with more love and adoration than he knows what to do with. Rune looks down at his half-finished plate.

“Yup,” he says over a lump in his throat. “I do.”

Doc reaches out his free hand.

Rune takes it.

* * *

Doc is a large man, and so he makes a large bed. Rune doesn’t think he’s ever seen a bed quite so big before. It would certainly fit them all though. Rune is impressed.

“Here,” Doc says upon finishing the frame. He hands him a bag of gold. “Go to the store and buy all the down feathers you and the mare can carry. We’re going to stuff the most comfortable mattress you’ve ever slept on.”

Rune smiles.

“I’ll be back soon.”

Elizabeth and Doc watch him from the porch and wave him off. He turns around once more before reaching the trail towards town. He’s got his arms around her and has leaned down to kiss her properly. Rune taps his heels into the mare’s side.

* * *

Sharing a bed with two people should’ve been cramped and awkward, but it wasn’t either of those things. Not to Rune. Not even with him in the middle, which took him by surprise.

“Elizabeth and I hog each other all the time,” Doc says, pushing him into the middle of the fluffy bed. “Now let us hog you.”

Elizabeth giggled, giddy at the comfort of their closeness and their new sleeping quarters. She leans over him to kiss him, and he kisses back. It doesn’t feel strange this time, and Rune is relieved. He’s almost sorry when she pulls away.

His eyes flick over to Doc, who had been watching them, head propped up on his palm, smiling that secret smile of his. In his eyes is a question though. One Rune knows he’d never dare ask aloud.

Rune takes it easy on him and pulls him the few inches needed to bring their lips together. Doc obliges, and Rune understands why Elizabeth might’ve wanted to hog him so much.

“Oh, I am so happy,” Elizabeth says.

Her gentle hands pet his hair and run down his back in a delightful way.

“Are you, honey?” Doc asks.

“Very happy,” she says.

Rune grins.


End file.
